Article by article, how Big Tech shaped the EU's roll-back of digital rights

EU governance, democracy, and corruption

• Several comments frame the Commission as “pro-corporate, anti-citizen” and too aligned with US interests, with particular criticism of its leadership.
• Others push back, noting that the Council (elected national governments) and Parliament must approve laws, and that the Commission president is indirectly but still democratically chosen.
• There’s frustration that the Commission can keep re‑proposing controversial measures (e.g. “chat control”) and a sense that layers of indirection dilute democratic accountability.
• Some call for formal investigation of the Commission for corruption, pointing to existing EU prosecutorial mechanisms but no clear outcomes.

Dependence on US tech, clouds, and consumer boycotts

• Strong sentiment that EU leaders overestimate the indispensability of US cloud and platform services, effectively allowing themselves to be blackmailed.
• Proposals range from ditching anti‑circumvention laws and boycotting US products to building EU alternatives and favoring local services.
• Others argue boycotts are hard to sustain and often hurt local franchisees more than US HQs; people tend to revert to dominant brands (e.g. Coke, iPhone).
• There’s a detailed sub‑thread on how hard large‑scale cloud migrations really are: some claim “portable code” plus open source makes it feasible; others with migration experience say complexity, regressions, and business risk make “cloud agnosticism” mostly theoretical at scale.

Strategic dependence and geopolitics

• Several comments zoom out: EU is said to have outsourced energy (Russia), manufacturing (China), and defense/tech (US), making it vulnerable to all three.
• One side argues these policies made sense for “peace and prosperity”; another claims military and industrial weakness inevitably invites bullying and war.
• Trump’s Greenland moves are seen by some Europeans as a rude awakening that the US is no longer a trustworthy partner and as a potential trigger for EU disentanglement from US tech and security dependence; others think it’s mostly a media‑baiting distraction but still forces de‑risking.

Do Europeans care about digital rights?

• One view: almost nobody in Europe cares enough to protest digital rights rollbacks; if they did, the EU would already have “firewalled” itself from Big Tech.
• Others dispute this, citing coverage in mainstream European media and longstanding sensitivities around surveillance (especially in Germany).
• There’s pushback against “people don’t care, so why talk about it?” with the argument that awareness is low and such articles help build concern.

Regulation, competitiveness, and GDPR/AI Act

• Multiple founders and practitioners describe EU tech regulation (GDPR, AI Act, etc.) as an “alphabet soup” that disproportionately harms startups, especially in health and AI, and scares away frontier‑scale investment.
• They highlight huge compliance workloads (DPIAs, DPAs, access controls, documentation) for rights that only a tiny fraction of users exercise, arguing the gap between intention and practical impact is vast.
• Critics of GDPR call out loopholes like “legitimate interest” and suggest the regime both fails to stop abuse and burdens smaller firms.
• Defenders respond that most of the described practices are necessary for responsible handling of sensitive data anyway, GDPR levels the playing field by forcing competitors to do the same, and manual handling of rare user rights is acceptable.
• There’s a broader worry that overregulation means “nothing remains to regulate because every company has moved somewhere else,” with reference to internal EU critiques like the Draghi competitiveness report.

Big Tech, political alignment, and left–right framing

• The article’s mention of Meta’s meetings with far‑right MEPs sparks debate: some see it as evidence of Big Tech aligning with specific parties; others argue these companies will work with whoever has power and “speak only USD.”
• A side discussion notes that both left and right governments try to pressure platforms to control narratives, with references to US cases where administrations pushed for content moderation changes.
• Several commenters argue that focusing on “far right vs far left” misses the core issue: transnational platforms as instruments of state power and as lobbyists against consumer digital rights.

Proposals for EU tech sovereignty

• One cluster wants fewer constraints on domestic firms and more targeted discrimination against US Big Tech: e.g. exclusive EU data storage, encryption keys in EU, banning AWS/Azure/GCP and Windows/Office from government procurement, mandating Linux, forcing joint ventures.
• Others suggest the “China playbook”: first deregulate to grow a native ecosystem, then regulate later once it is strong, rather than pre‑loading strict rules that only incumbents can afford.
• A more moderate position argues that rolling back or tweaking some digital rules to enable scaling and investment isn’t inherently “evil” but a pragmatic response to global competition—though critics fear this becomes a pretext for watering down rights.

Corporate power, NGOs, and lobbying

• Several comments point to billionaire wealth growth and AI‑driven gains as evidence that current policy is structurally pro‑billionaire, with digital regulation rollbacks framed as part of that trend.
• There’s deep skepticism about NGOs and advocacy groups: some see them as critical watchdogs; others label parts of the NGO ecosystem and the “legal‑industrial complex” as self‑interested actors that entrench complexity and help Big Tech monopolize.
• A broader question is raised: if governments are heavily influenced by corporate lobbying, what counter‑vailing function do they still serve? One reply stresses that regulating lobbying itself is a political responsibility, not something that will change by blaming lobbyists alone.

Digital vs physical rights

• One comment questions the focus on digital rights rollbacks while physical rights (e.g. protest, bodily security) are eroding, implying that without strong physical rights, digital protections may be moot.
• Others implicitly connect these spheres, arguing that imperialism abroad, platform capture, and erosion of rights at home are tightly linked dynamics rather than separate issues.